


Monday's Child

by pwincess



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pwincess/pseuds/pwincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wanted to do seven vignettes, little slices of Nick and Cassie's friendship. They do not follow chronological order. Merry Christmas to you!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Monday's Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weasleytook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weasleytook/gifts).



> I wanted to do seven vignettes, little slices of Nick and Cassie's friendship. They do not follow chronological order. Merry Christmas to you!

_Monday's child is fair of face_

Once she finds him, Cassie latches onto Nick like he's the only thing keeping her alive. She can feel it happening in the hours after they meet. She does need him, and his impulsive efforts to protect her are irresistible. It's too much like having a big brother--like having a family--and she wants to hold onto him forever.

Cassie has a sometimes-crush on Nick. She knows because she has girlish daydreams about him; her eyes linger on his shoulders or his eyelashes; she feels herself blush if he holds her hand when they're walking together. Her crush comes and goes with the season, or the time of the month, or what sort of music she's listening to.

As the years pass, Cassie's crush fades. She comes to love Nick as a woman loves, and with the confidence of a person who loves her best friend. She no longer ducks her head when he grabs her hand, she smiles at him openly, because he's a part of her and holding his hand feels right. Eventually, she's not embarrassed to want to look at him, because she feels like he's as good as hers to look at. And one day, she ceases her daydreaming about what might happen, because she can See it now in their futures.

 

 

 _Tuesday's child is full of grace_

Before Cassie turns 15, Nick asks what she wants for her birthday.

"Surprise me," she says. Cassie is at what Nick hopes is the height of her teendom, sullen and self righteous, and three-quarters of what she says is sarcastic.

"Was that a joke?"

Cassie rolls her eyes brattily, and mysteriously. Nick isn't quite sure. He knows she like surprises, but surprising her isn't really in his wheelhouse.

"What do you want? Come on. A new hair brush or something? An iPod? I don't know what kids are into these days."

"Nick! I'm not--" She trails off, knowing how childish she would sound claiming to be grown up for the hundredth time. She settles for rolling her eyes again.

"Your face will stick that way," Nick goads her. "A pony?"

They spend her birthday meandering around the cold, rainy streets of Toronto, shivering. It turns out Division wants them again, after having come to a recent truce, and their only recourse is to wander aimlessly to try to throw the agents off a little.

Nick knows that Cassie hates this, not being able to think about where she's going, but it's easy with two people. They distract each other, talk about whatever comes into their minds--the books they've taken turns reading, the bus driver who took them across California--and they don't have to think about where their feet are taking them.

At the end of the day they fold themselves into a quiet, shabby hotel. Nick says he'll stay up first in case anything happens, and Cassie doesn't argue, just strips out of most of her wet clothes and gets under the covers.

"Hey, best birthday ever, right?" Nick says lightly, trying to get comfortable in the straight-back wicker chair. "You're welcome!"

Cassie, apparently too tired to be sarcastic, just smiles at him for a long minute before her eyes grow too heavy.

 

 

 _Wednesday's child is full of woe_

The first thing they do is get on the bus back to Nick's crappy apartment. It's their only chance to go there again, before Division has a chance to figure out what happened and send agents after them. Cassie thinks they should just go, use this time to put some distance between themselves and the bright lights of Hong Kong, but Nick says there's something he needs to do. His face is somehow grave even as he smiles with her on the bus, cracking a joke about her hair or how much he's craving shu mai to go with all the soy sauce coursing through his veins. His face is tight with pain from his leg and maybe something else, so Cassie doesn't argue with him. She leads the way through the busy streets, helps him up the stairs because there's a camera in the elevator, follows him into the quiet apartment.

Nick is limping as fast as he can into his bedroom before Cassie can even find the light switch. She stands in the bedroom doorway and watches him rifle through the top drawer of his small dresser, then do it again, and then a third time. He leans over the drawer to make sure nothing is hiding against the sides. Then he pauses, closes his eyes, and puts a fist against his forehead. Then he starts tearing through the other drawers with a grim efficiency, t-shirts falling unnoticed.

"Can I help?" Cassie asks. At the sound of her voice, Nick stands. He grimaces at her apologetically, then looks away. His eyes scan about the room as if the hiding place of whatever it is he's looking for will reveal itself.

"No," he says quietly, after a few moments. He moves past her into the main living area. "No. There was--I thought I had a photo." He stops talking, eyes still searching over every surface.

"We should go," Cassie tells him, because he's brought her all the way back here for a picture. He obviously thinks it was important, but she's frustrated. "Nick," she says when he doesn't move. 

"Yeah." His eyes meet her again, and he gives her a nod. "Okay. Yeah."

They gather up what they can, a packet of crackers and a tube of toothpaste and some clothes for him, and they hop on a train leaving the city as dawn is breaking.

Cassie buys them some breakfast to eat in their seats, and once they're settled, Nick says, "It was me and Kira at Coney Island."

"What was?" Cassie says after she's run it through her mind a couple times and decided that it really didn't make sense.

"The photo. We took it right after we met." He takes another bite of food, chews it, swallows. "I thought it would prove that we knew each other before, but I'm not sure we did. I mean. I guess we didn't."

Cassie doesn't have anything to say to make him feel better, doesn't know if what he thought was true really was, or if it was Pushed into his mind. She feels a hot anger at Kira for doing this to him, even if it wasn't her fault, even if Kira was deceived herself. Cassie is angry at her for the jealousy Cassie felt at something that might never have even existed. But mostly she just feels sad, with Nick sitting here, haunted, knowing he may never know for sure. He looks tired and anxious, and beneath that he's heartbroken, Cassie thinks. She looks out the window.

Nick tells her they're going north, deeper into China, to lay low, but she figures out later that he was just being cautious. It's the first in a series of pointless lies they tell each other to try to buy time from anyone who might be Watching their futures. They move west.

 

 

 _Thursday's child has far to go_  
Fourteen months later, they end up back in Hong Kong. They've spent a long time traveling around South Asia and Nick is tired, too hard to fly under the radar even with Cassie's hair dyed dark, and they haven't gotten any leads about Cassie's mom that they're even remotely willing to risk their lives over.

They come back to Hong Kong to meet up with Hook and maybe make enough money betting on the Hong Kong Sevens to get them to Europe.

They ride the tram to Wan Chai to waste time before the evening match. They drink coffee on Moon Street and Nick tries to veto every short skirt Cassie picks up in the markets. As they're paying a vendor (Nick's treat, he says, since it's a non-scandalous pair of jeans), Cassie's hands fly to her eyes. When she lowers them, she tells him they're going to take a taxi to the Grand Hyatt. Nick doesn't ask until they're on their way.

"Kira's there," Cassie says simply. Her face is stormy. Nick guesses that Kira isn't going to hurt them, but it can't all be good news.

Cassie takes them up to a suite on a high floor and opens the door. Nick is used to following her lead by now, having realized early on that even when she doesn't actually know what's going to happen, she usually has better sense than he has anyway. The room they enter is long, with two seating areas and a spectacular view. Nick may have forgotten what a nice hotel room looks like, but this is as extravagant a suite as he's ever conned his way into.

Kira appears in the doorway in a black dress, her hair sleek and well-manicured. _She's dressed for business_ , thinks Nick, _this is a business meeting_ , but she smiles warmly when she sees them.

"Nick, I'm so glad you came," she says. "It's so good to see you."

She's holding the photo, the one he convinced himself didn't exist. He can see glimpses of it as she turns it in her fingers. Kira is taken aback when Nick starts yelling at her. The affectionate gleam in her eyes turns into a wounded look. She tries to put her hands on Nick's shoulders to ground him, to calm him down, but it only makes Nick angrier, that it was real all along and he's already let this go.

Cassie makes herself scarce, loiters near the baby grand piano, unimpressed, unsurprised by his tirade.

By the time they actually start discussing why Kira is there, Nick's voice is raw, but he feels better. Cassie does most of the talking. They leave with a dark, wistful look from Kira and what she thinks might be the location where Division is holding Cassie's mother. She doesn't ask them to stay. They go straight to the airport.

 

 

 _Friday's child is loving and giving_

Nick doesn't go out much, Cassie thinks, for a hot 20-something. Sometimes he disappears for a few hours, and occasionally they stay somewhere long enough for him to get a job, for them to make new contacts, start dating someone.

The first time it happens is in Bangkok. They've been there for nearly two months. Cassie is reading a book on American History in case she wants to catch up with school again, when Nick steps out into the living room of their small apartment.

"I've got a date," he says. He's wearing a button-down shirt Cassie's never seen. "You okay for dinner?"

She raises her eyebrows at him.

"All right," he says, and huffs out a little laugh, a rare thing. He's nervous. 

There's a knock as he turns away. Cassie gets up and perches on the kitchen counter while Nick lets in a pretty American girl, a brunette, who looks around appraisingly and spots Cassie. 

"Hey," she says. "I'm Jessie; I work with Nick."

"I'm Cassie," Cassie says. "Nick, do you need money?"

Nick opens his mouth to answer and hesitates, thinking. He runs odd jobs at a publishing house full time, but Cassie still earns more between them, often just by being in the right place at the right time, and she's better with money besides. She takes a few bills out of her pocket and hands them to him. He smiles gratefully, eyes wide. 

"Thanks, sugar mama," he says, and leans over to give her a kiss on the cheek. Cassie makes sure to make a show of wiping her face, but she feels herself smiling, happy, as Nick gathers up his coat. 

When she looks up, Jessie is watching her with a sweet look, like Cassie is a girl with a crush and it's the cutest thing she's ever seen. 

Cassie doesn't have a crush, not today. But she is possessive at the best of times, protective, the same way Nick is about her. And Cassie knows that the date won't go well, that they'll get splashed by a cab right before they reach the restaurant and have to cut dinner short. 

"Bye! Have fun!" she calls down the hall after them. 

 

 

 _Saturday's child works hard for a living_

They aren't always trying to lay low. Sometimes they're prodding at the soft spots in Division's sprawling frame, trying to find weaknesses, information, allies. Even after five or six years of circling Division with Cassie, Nick's kind of impressed by how little they ever get. The organization seems sometimes to have every angle covered. 

Nick sits hard against a wall, wraps his arms over his head to protect himself from the gunfire coming from two different sides. 

"Shit, shit, shit," he mutters. He wants to get his eyes on Cassie, who took cover somewhere past the opposite door. He peeks gingerly around the corner and sees Cassie peeking back about 20 feet away. She looks at him for a moment and then she disappears behind the column.

More bullets fly past. He readjust his grip on his gun. He knows he doesn't have a good shot on either of the agents. Maybe he can at least shoot close enough to distract them while he and Cassie make for the exit. Or maybe it would be funny to try to reason with them. 

Cassie's fingers appear from behind the column, tapping the ground a few times. Nick doesn't think about it, just slides his gun over to her, Moving it a bit. He sees her small hand wrap around it and disappear. By the time he's stood up against his wall, Cassie has fired, taking out one of the agents and winging the other in the shoulder. He's a Sniff, and surprisingly forthcoming with information. He tells them everything he knows about the security measures at Division's Seattle research facility without Nick so much as threatening him. 

Cassie kisses him for the first time that afternoon, after Nick says something about the best way to try to infiltrate the facility. They're cutting through a Staples parking lot at the time. Nick kisses her back. _It's the adrenaline_ , he tells himself. 

 

 

 _But the child born on the Sabbath Day  
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay_

They have a perfect day in some beach town in Delaware. The weather is miserable, and the beach is covered in glass and seaweed, but they get good salt water taffy and spend the whole day laughing. Nick doesn't remember how they managed to waste so much time watching the taffy being made and staring at seaweed roiling up in the frothy waves, but he remembers thinking he was happy like this; even though he'd like to stay in one place for more than a month or two at a time, and even though he'd like to walk down the street without having to look over his shoulder, and even though the only person he trusts is a tiny girl who may be far more mature than he is, it's not a bad life, he thinks. 


End file.
